Difference between Windows file-system and linux file -system

Directory Structure

You won’t find any Windows, Program Files, or Users folders if you start browsing around the file system on your Linux computer. (Although the /home/ directory is very similar to the Users folder.)

The Linux directory structure doesn’t just use different names for folders, it uses an entirely different layout. For example, on Windows, an application might store all its files in C:\Program Files\Application. On Linux, its files would be split between multiple locations – its binaries in /usr/bin, its libraries in /usr/lib, and its configuration files in /etc/.

Case Sensitivity

On Windows, you can’t have a file named file and another file named FILE in the same folder. The Windows file system isn’t case sensitive, so it treats these names as the same file.

On Linux, the file system is case sensitive. This means that you could have files named file, File, and FILE in the same folder. Each file would have different contents – Linux treats capitalized letters and lower-case letters as different characters.

Backslashes vs. Forward Slashes

Windows uses backslashes, just as DOS did. For example, the path to a user’s directory on Windows is:

C:\Users\Name

On Linux, the path to a user’s home directory is:

/home/name

No Drive Letters – It’s All Under /

Windows exposes partitions and devices at drive letters. Whether you have multiple hard drives, multiple partitions on the same hard drive, or removable devices connected, each file system is available under its own drive letter.

Linux doesn’t have drive letters. Instead, it makes other file systems accessible at arbitrary directories. (Windows can do this too, but this isn’t how it works out of the box.)

On Linux, everything is under / – the root directory. There are no files above the root directory, as there are files outside of C: on Windows. When you connect a device to your computer, it will become available under /media/. The contents of the directory display the contents of the mounted partition.

Everything is a File

Just as every mounted file system is a directory under / (the root directory), everything on Linux is a file. For example, your first hard drive is represented by /dev/sda, your CD drive is available at /dev/cdrom, while your mouse is represented by /dev/mouse.

This phrase is actually a bit of an oversimplification – everything isn’t really a file on Linux. But understanding what this phrase means will help you understand how Linux works.

You Can Delete or Modify Open Files

On Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems, applications don’t lock exclusive access to files as often as they do on Windows. For example, let’s say you’re watching a video file in VLC on Windows. The credits are playing and you’re done watching it, so you try to delete it. You’ll see an error message- – you need to stop watching the file in VLC before you can delete it, rename it, or do anything else to it.

Some other differences include :

No Registry in linux :

Have you heard of the Windows registry? If you haven’t, here’s an extremely fast crash course: it’s a master database of all the settings on your computer. It holds application information, user passwords, device information–pretty much anything you can think of. If it’s not stored as a file, it’s probably stored in the registry.

Linux doesn’t have a registry. The applications on a Linux machine store their settings on a program-by-program basis under the hierarchy of users. In this sense, Linux configurations are modular. You won’t find a centralized database that needs periodic cleaning here.

Command Terminal present in linux :

 Linux has a (fading) reputation for being the operating system for geeks and that reputation mostly comes from the prevalence of the terminal. What’s a terminal, you ask? It’s that black box with traditionally green text that you can use to execute commands. In other words, it’s like Windows Command Prompt on crack.

If you’re going to switch to Linux, you must be open to learning about command structures because you will find yourself using it frequently. I’m sure there are graphical workarounds (such as opening config files in a text editor) but it’s hard to beat the power and efficiency of a terminal that does exactly what you tell it to do.